Your mac and cheese is full of dangerous chemicals, according to a new report

Should you be wary of the contents of this delicious comfort food? INSIDER

The INSIDER Summary:

Harmful chemicals called phthalates, which are known to cause hormonal and birth defects, were found in packaged macaroni and cheese.

A new study found the chemicals in 29 out of 30 samples of powdered cheese products.

The worst offenders were packaged mac and cheese products.

It's hard to resist the gooey, cheesy contents inside the iconic blue box, but you may want to hold off on buying pre-packaged mac and cheese.

A new study called "Klean up Kraft" by the Coalition for Safer Food Processing and Packaging found high levels of potentially harmful phthalate chemicals inside 29 out of 30 samples of processed cheese products. The worst offenders were the powdered cheeses from macaroni and cheese items, where levels of the potentially dangerous chemicals were four times higher than in other processed cheese products. Nine out of the 30 samples were Kraft products.

Phthalates, or phthalate esters, are often added to plastic or food to increase flexibility. As food additives, they are not banned by the FDA, but multiple studies have linked exposure to these chemicals to hormone disruption in boys as well as birth defects in young infant boys.

However, six types of phthalates have been banned in the US as additives to children's toys, like rubber duckies. A 2014 report from the CDC urged the FDA to reconsider their legality in food and drink, where the danger is more prevalent than during playtime.

"Our belief is that it's in every mac 'n' cheese product — you can't shop your way out of the problem," Mike Belliveau, executive director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center, one of the four advocacy groups that funded the report, told The New York Times.

An FDA spokesperson meanwhile told the New York Times that "there must be sufficient scientific information to demonstrate that the use of a substance in food contact materials is safe under the intended conditions of use before it is authorized for those uses," and that the government agency will continue to monitor research on phthalates.

INSIDER contacted Kraft for comments but the company did not respond in time for publication.